Short: What went wrong with Walker

Buried in a predictable but correct article by Sean Trende is perhaps the best guess at what happened to Walker's bid for the presidency:

Walker lost because he had no strategy. There was no David Axelrod for the Walker campaign; Scott Walker hired Scott Walker to be his David Axelrod.

...A presidential candidate has a more-than-full-time job: being a candidate. He or she does not have time to follow ever-changing electoral dynamics. So when a candidate without a good strategist is faced with Supreme Court decisions on gay marriage, questions about the legality of abortion to save the life of the mother, the rise of birthright citizenship as an issue or, say, the ascendency of Donald Trump, that candidate will flail.

Sounds plausible to me. Of course I read many comments from Wisconsiners about how horrid Walker was and predicting his failure. However, you can always predict the failure of a presidential candidate, and 95% of the time you'll be right. Only one person is going to make it to the White House, and all the others will reward your dour predictions. Predicting the winner is hard, predicting a loser is like hitting the broad side of a barn. I guess Walker hit that barn pretty hard.

Image: @Anomaly100

...Or did he tank because he frequently looks like a doofus?

Short: The pandering has begun

Of course it's begun. It started long ago. However, it's also very good to read an article that so clearly points out the pandering, as this NY Times article does. The article focuses on how Scott Walker has been changing his positions to influence the very conservative GOP voters in Iowa. Walker has flipped on ethanol, immigration, and marriage equality.

Of course others have used such a strategy, and it tends to work. If some of your previous policies or principles don't align with your target voters, it's a no-brainer to change your position--if you're an ambitious politician, that is.

Those of us attuned to national politics already knew Scott Walker was a kiss-up. There was the hilarious faux phone call from the ultra-rich David Koch, actually an impersonator who released the audio. That Walker is going to kiss-up to Iowa voters, that's not a surprise.

Image: rightwisconsin.com

Candidates Implode--Two in one day!

No, I'm not even talking about Rick Perry or Chris Christie.

This time it's Scott Walker (for campaign finance shenanigans) and Brian Schweitzer (for gay and whore slurs against members of Congress). Schweitzer's verbal gaffes were bad enough that they could have been perpetrated by Rick Perry, but not this time.

This is good. I'm happy when the stupider ones eliminate themselves. Actually, these problems may not rise to a strike-out for these candidates, but they're getting closer.

Image: news.stv.tv